Anthrocon 2011 - Day N+1

Had a lot of packing to do on Monday morning. Then came the worst part of the con. With everyone trying to get their luggage down to the lobby at the same time, the elevators were full. To make matters worse, people were pushing the up button, in addition to the down button, to catch elevators on the way up. That makes things slower because the elevator has to stop twice on every floor. I decided to wait in my room for a bit until the elevator traffic cleared. So it was a bit late when I finally checked out and got going.

The other problem was the Pennsylvania Turnpike was closed because of a bus crash. The turnpike was reopened shortly after noon but I decided to do a few things before entering the turnpike to allow time for traffic to clear. I went to the Monroeville Eat 'n Park to get a free slice of blackberry pie. Thanks to athauglas for the coupon. After a few geocaches, I had a bacon and egg sandwich at Primanti Brothers. I hadn't tried the Monroeville location before. The food is the same but prices were oddly a bit higher than the Strip District location.

A few more geocaches later, I hit the turnpike. The sequence of events was similar to last year. I ran into the New York group at the Somerset Service Plaza even though I thought I was late getting there. This time, I stopped at Breezewood. Leaving and reentering the turnpike adds a bit to the toll but I was curious about the area. It was pretty much what I expected: A bunch of restaurants, truck stops, and hotels packed into a section of US-30 surrounding the turnpike and I-70 interchange. I was there, however, because I noticed a billboard ad for Hardee's. So I had chicken and fries for an early dinner. I also found two geocaches that were right in town. After leaving Breezewood, there was only one eastbound cache to do in the vicinity of Harrisburg. Then I left the turnpike and went home via Lancaster.

( The caches... )